Browse by Artist: BROWN, CHRIS

Artist:	BROWN, CHRIS
Title:	Iconicities
Label:	NEW WORLD RECORDS
Format:	CD
Price:	$15.00
Catalog #:	NW 80723CD

Subtitled: 3 Pieces For Percussion And Live Electronics. Performed by William Winant (percussion); Chris Brown (piano and electronics). "Chris Brown's (b. 1953) music has evolved within the intersections of many different traditions and styles. Following early training as a classical pianist, he was influenced by studies of Indonesian, Indian, Afro-American, and Cuban musics, and then took off on branches provided by the American Experimentalists in inventing and building a personal electronic instrumentation. Collaboration and improvisation have been primary in the development of his music for various traditional instruments and interactive electronics. An "iconicity" is the analogy between the form of a sign and its meaning. All three of these pieces are through-composed using simple processes applied to both the sounds of the instruments and their real-time electronic transformations. The players must synchronize exactly with the rhythms produced by these transformations, and together the acoustic and electronic layers of sound create closely interwoven textures that evolve gradually into more complex forms. The acoustic sounds and the patterned variations of their recurrence affect the listener's experience of time, and provide a metaphor for its transcendence. Stupas (2007): A stupa is a Southeast Asian monumental architectural form, which in Buddhism is also viewed as a symbol of enlightened mind and a path to its realization. The form of a stupa, a square base with circular domes rising above it, is used to structure this piece. Gangsa (2010): Gangsa are bronze flat-gongs from the mountainous regions of the northern Philippines played in ensembles in which each player plays one gong of a different pitch. Subtitled Invention #8, this piece is one of a series that focuses on polyrhythmic interaction of performers with electronics. Iceberg (1985): The electronic sounds are all live transformations of the percussion, and the performer plays in time with the automated switching of effects, starting simply, and then playing more complex and syncopated patterns against it."

Artist:	BROWN, CHRIS
Title:	Talking Drum
Label:	POGUS
Format:	CD
Price:	$13.00
Catalog #:	POGUS 21034

"Binaural motion recordings composed as a dialogue of distances. Live recordings of music for electronic network music ensemble juxtaposed with location recordings of traditional music and environmental soundscapes. Made in Bali, the Philippines, Turkey, Europe, Cuba and America 1991-99. This compilation/composition documents nearly a decade of work that began with the recording of dense sonic environments, both 'natural' and urban. Talking Drum is an interactive installation made with four networked laptop computers programmed to explore cyclical polyrhythms in large acoustic spaces. While the performance of the entire system is synchronized by one computer, each computer station generates independent results using genetic-programming algorithms which are affected by acoustic musicians' performances. Each station in the space "grows" its own rhythmic response to the situation, like similar plants growing differently in adjustment to their locations in an environment. The musicians improvise with the rhythms, interacting with the response of the computers they play next to, and the whole is a quartet of these human-machine duets."

Artist:	BROWN, CHRIS
Title:	Lava
Label:	TZADIK
Format:	CD
Price:	$14.50
Catalog #:	TZ 7002

"Chris Brown, San Francisco based composer, pianist, and electronic instrument builder, studied composition with William Brooks, electronic music with Gordon Mumma and computer music with David Rosenboom. His music includes pieces for solo instruments with interactive electronics, and improvisational ensemble works... Lava describes a primordial state of flux, the transmutation of one material into another through a streaming of intensely concentrated energy. 'Lava' is written for brass quartet, four percussionists and 4-channels of electronic sound generated by a computer controlled signal processing system. Aspects of the physical structure of a volcano are applied to control musical elements, creating their own musical grammar. The fluid motion of burning lava streams are modeled by a score that describes all musical elements as states of change: there are no fixed pitches, loudnesses or timbres, only directions of pitch, timbre, and dynamic motion... The electronic sounds are all created by live sampling from the acoustic sounds of the instruments, and there are no synthesizers or previous recordings involved. The change from a solid (earth) into a liquid (lava) is modeled by this transformation of the acoustic sounds into electronic sounds that create an enveloping musical landscape." This is a fantastic 60 minute piece, in a very organic electroacoustic vein.

Artist:	BROWN, CHRIS
Title:	Rogue Wave
Label:	TZADIK
Format:	CD
Price:	$14.50
Catalog #:	TZ 8014

"Chris Brown is a San Francisco based composer who stands firmly in the tradition of West Coast innovators like Terry Riley and James Tenney. Rogue Wave, his first CD in almost a decade, is one of his best -- a startling retrospective spanning over twenty years of activity. Six dynamic pieces featuring a wide range of sound sources and compositional styles, from angelic choirs of electronically altered pianos, to hardcore hiphop transmissions and polyphonic noise symphonies. This important new release places Brown at the forefront of new electronic composition, and finally sheds long overdue light on an important innovator whose work has been unjustly marginalized for years."

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